Economic impact of retiring the space shuttles
NOV 02, 2010
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.024796
Business Week : By the end of 2011 NASA plans to have launched its last three space shuttles; the first, Discovery, is scheduled to launch tomorrow. In a news feature for Business Week, Paul Barrett examines the shuttles’ imminent retirement, from a mainly economic perspective. Layoffs at the Kennedy Space Center, the shuttles’ base in Florida, will be severe:
The Kennedy head count—civil servants and contractors—will fall from 15,000 in 2009 to 7,000 or lower. Nearly all the cuts will affect private sector workers; the 2,100 direct NASA employees currently are not targeted for layoffs. Overall, the Space Center workforce earns an average annual wage of $75,000, compared with $47,000 “outside of the gate.”
Economically, things will get worse in the recession-hit towns where shuttle workers live. And because NASA has spread its workforce in centers around the country, the impact of the shuttle’s retirement will be felt in California, Louisiana, Texas, and Utah, as well as in Florida.
© 2010 American Institute of Physics
